Revenge, Tick
by An4rchicpe4ce
Summary: A short story on Summoners' Rift involving two characters, LeBlanc and Shyvana, as they try to kill each other in a match.


The joints at her knees and ankles throbbed and groaned in protest of her swift, sharp movements, and her body called out, begged for rest. Though her heart chided her, commanding her not to give in to her body's desires, LeBlanc gave in to them. A moan of relief escaped her lips as she threw back her cloak and lowered her bottom to the floor. She clasped a hand to her mouth, suddenly remembering where she was.

Summoners' Rift was basked in sunlight. It was late afternoon, and beads of perspiration ran down LeBlanc's face, washing away the thick layers of face powder and eyeliner, leaving dark grey trails running over her cheeks. Sitting amongst tall, slender blades of green, she was shaded thankfully under a tree with lofty big branches. She would never be seen here. Extending her long legs to their fullest length, she laid her elegant staff down onto the grassy patch next to her. Her head almost lolled to one side in drowsiness; at this ideal location, the sun's rays were a lukewarm breath caressing her skin, and she felt the afternoon spell work on her. Hardening her resolve, she pinched her thigh through the supple fabric of her pants, and came out of her sleepy state. Unclasping her inventory bag with her left hand, she dug into its depths with her right and grabbed the cork of a glass vial. Satisfied, she popped the cork out with a sharp yank and downed the crimson contents in one. The silence was broken by a chugging noise as she swallowed mouthful after mouthful of potion. Tipping the bottle for the last few drops, she sighed (quietly) in relief as a green aura rose around her. She felt the pain encircling her legs go away, to be replaced by a minty coolness. Her pain now washed away, she fumbled in her satchel for a little green crystal with golden wings protruding out, shoving the pointy end on the ground.

Despite escaping with low health, she managed to complete her task. It was time to return to the fountain to recharge her powers. Picking up her staff and fastening her satchel, her summoner recited the recall spell. Whispers reverberated in LeBlanc's mind, and encircled her body in rings of blue light, that pulsed brightly against the dark green brush. One by one, the rings rose above her head, spiralling upwards. Using a hand to shield her eyes from the light of the sun, LeBlanc could hear the last trace of the whispers fading from her mind. In a second or two, all her power and energy would come rushing back to her.

Just a little while more.

As the last of the rings ascended, LeBlanc saw through the blue haze of magic, that a hulking figure had appeared in the pearly-white mist. Almost immediately, she felt a wall of heat slam into her face as a dragon roared straight at her, red-hot scales radiating a fire within.

Fear took control over her rationality and she took an instinctive step backward. It was the last wrong move she would ever make. Disappointment rang through her mind, and she realised that it did not come from her being, that it came from the one who controlled her. It clouded her mind with a force, such that she did not have time to react to the events playing in front of her eyes. Before she knew it, a ball of flame was flung at her at point-blank range, and it hit her straight in the gut. Doubling up in pain, she smacked the flames with her hand raw, and clutched her staff tighter. When the next fireball came roaring out of the beast's mouth, LeBlanc felt her training kick in. She teleported away in the blink of an eye, dodging it. A glowing yellow pedestal stood where she was a second ago, and sent a pulse of energy at the dragon, stinging it.

Shyvana was furious; she had already let her target escape a minute or two ago, and that wasn't going to happen again with her here. She flapped her newfound wings into the bush, and saw two LeBlancs looking at her. One of them grabbed her staff and ran for it with her coattail flapping wildly behind her, whereas the other one remained and sent pulses of light from the purple gem atop her staff. Instantly, she gave chase to the one that had taken off, and as the dragon left the bush, she heard her target's doppelgänger thump on the floor, presumably dropping dead.

LeBlanc skipped from bush to bush, trying to staunch the blood flowing profusely from her abdomen. Just as she thought she was out of the woods, there suddenly appeared the figure that would end her life. In desperation, she cast a powerful spell from her staff. This, apparently, had no effect on the dragon's slow, calculated advance. LeBlanc was cornered, and they both knew it. She waved her wand feebly, and thin, golden chains snaked around the dragon's scaly wings, but she knew it was useless. Shyvana sent a fireball hurtling into her face, followed up by a blast of fire from her nose. All LeBlanc remembered was a searing heat, and nothing.

Shyvana looked at LeBlanc's blank, glassy expression. Her eyes glazed over as she exhaled her last breath. The hand grasping the staff went slack.

"You have slain an enemy!" The announcer's voice rang out through the plains. Shyvana set her back on her dead, broken target, and headed off for a new one. She felt the fury ebbing out of her, as it often did after she made a kill. Her wings shrunk back to clawed hands, and the vermillion bulk of her body turned back into its usual blue form.

She could see it, now, as she had seen so many different times. Her own death surely wasn't pretty. She felt her consciousness rise out of the wreck of her body, floating in the light breeze. Looking at the back of Shyvana's retreating human figure, she cast her eyes back to herself. Her fact, marred from the dragon girl's fiery breath, had crumbled ands cracked, black lines crisscrossing her white cheeks. Her body laid on its side, coat unravelled to show her lithe figure underneath.

The tranquility of her mind was broken by sharp whiny noises. Turning her consciousness' eyes away from her dead body, she tuned into the whining noises made by her summoner, a young adolescent named Aeria.

_"LeBlanc, why were you such an idiot? You aren't new to the game, you know the basic rules for recall; never move when the recall is in process! And guess what you just did that gave your enemies an advantage? I'd say you were lucky you escaped that dragon girl for the first time, but surely you of all people would know how to treasure second chances! Now you've just gave her an edge over you-"_

She cut off her words from her mind. This was no time to listen to a girl bitch about performance. A plan had begun to take shape in her mind, and she knew it would work, that she could put it into action. The timer in her mind ticked away the last few seconds to her resurrection. A tingling sensation crept through her consciousness, as glittering numbers appeared in front of her mind's eye.

_5..._

_4..._

_3..._

_2..._

_1..._

A sharp jolt, an intake of breath, and LeBlanc was back on her feet, at the fountain. She knew she had limited time to put her plan back in place. She reconnected the link to her summoner whom she had previously, in a moment of anger, shut out.

_"I need you to teleport me to the last sight ward I placed,"_ LeBlanc interrupted her summoner's rants in what she felt was an even, calm tone.

_"-ever show that standard again, I swear I'll- what! What good would that good? Are you trying to further jeopardise your chanc-"_

_"Just. Do. It."_ A note of irritation had passed into her voice, cutting through her complaints, deadly threats in every syllable she uttered. At once, she felt the familiar sight of golden rings shining around her, enveloping her in its warm glow. The rings formed a hazy golden tunnel, in which she felt her body rise up seemingly into oblivion.

A short while later, and her feet touched soft ground again. She could feel the indentations in the soil that her body had made just now, knees buckling, asking for a rest. Grasping her staff with a renewed sense of purpose, she strode out of the brush, away from the gem, still twinkling innocently in the late afternoon sun.

Shyvana could never have seen it coming. One moment, she was hurling bits of fire conjured out of her hands at a blue-coloured turret, and the next, she had been hit on the back of her head by a blinding flash of light. Looking upwards, she saw an elaborately designed square of light hanging above her. Instantly, flames revolved around her being, protecting her from nearby foes, as she turned around to face LeBlanc. As soon as she did so, another ball of light smacked her right in the face. Her instincts roared at her to counter-attack, but she knew it would be useless to do so; she was silence. The square that hung over her was now purple in colour.

Fire burned within Shyvana, prodding her into action. She lobbed a huge fireball at her enemy, just to have her dodge it in a split of a second. Once again, the pedestal shot out a bolt to her chest, knocking her back a few steps. The deceiver cackled madly, and waved her wand in one fluid motion. The chains groped her hands, around her feet, and around her neck. As two ends of the chains met, she froze in place, unable to move. LeBlanc took advantage of the situation by relentlessly sending out bolts of energy that thumped, one after another, at Shyvana's beaten frame. By the time she was free of her restraints, she knew that she wasn't in any fit shape to fight, while her for was in the pink of health. To make matters worse, the blue turret had now chose to attack her instead of the allied minions. She felt the crush on her back, which goaded her into desperate action.

She made a run for it, but LeBlanc had clearly thought it through. She was two steps ahead of Shyvana, casting her digit once more. As she made a last-ditch attempt to salvage the sticky situation she was in, flashing over the wall, her foe was already there, having teleported to the same location.

With critically low health, she ran as fast as her legs could carry her. However, a nagging feeling told her that she could never outrun her chaser, and it proved to be true, for LeBlanc thrown another set of chains at her, leashing her to her, and slowing Shyvana down. As she was bound yet again, defenceless, she glared fiercely into her assailant's face, but that did not stop her from sending the last shot mercilessly right between her eyes.

The dragon girl keeled over, and thumped to the floor, dead, the rage in her last expression still burning in her face. LeBlanc calmly strode away, out of the jungle. Her summoner was at a lost of words.

_"See, there, that wasn't too hard, was it? The deceiver can never be bested,_" she purred at her summoner.

In her mind, she thought, _"revenge, tick."_


End file.
